The Singles Jukebox

You know who ELSE hit 'em with something vi-i-ral? (No, not us. Yet.

[4.44]

Total writers: 18
Highest score: [8]
Lowest score: [0]
Controversy index: 1.87

Nortey Dowuona: Mark 8:30: Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. Todrick Hall, who slowly built up a career from performing on cruises like the Royal Caribbean and at amusement parks, went on an extensive press run to promote his Wizard of Oz themed album in 2017 and spoke about himself as a figure who could inspire young gay black boys like him. And to this day, I have never seen critical engagement with his work in any of the spaces I read criticism -- in fact, on this very website, he's been used as an example of pandering! Lil Nas X is in the same predicament. He's now pandering by reminiscing on his old glories of causing controversy: a tweeter who needs to stick to Twitter/Bluesky/Mastodon/his mama named him Twitter imma call him Twitter; a forgotten controversy of 2021 who had a song with NBA YoungBoy that even NBA's core fans don't remember; the token rapper for people who have rightly sworn off most of rap despite being a pop singer. He no longer has the grace of being given a chance to try for the pop career he so desperately wanted -- he is now already a relic. And the strange off-key pulsing added by Gestaffelstein, who previously handed KaYYCYY a grace period of Kanye-buoyed attention that evaporated when he demanded his due credit and had The Weeknd doing his best to sully their names by failing to properly dom, does not make their analog-first techniques more of a winner with a less abandoned or embarrassing figure. It Was Written, the sophomore album for Big Nas, was planned to be a hard street record with Marley Marl, but he kept putting it off, not heading out to meet, not finishing songs, hearing them on the real in the world, which led to him instead getting Steve Stoute and the Trackmasters to make him shiny pop rap that could sell. Every choice Big Nas has made has followed this format. The hopeful reading of this little anecdote is that Lil Nas will, after the flop of "J Christ" and having to apologize for the pointless, homophobic backlash, change tack and not hit us with something viral, but hit us with something good. 
[4]

Taylor Alatorre: "I don't know which will go first – rock 'n' roll or Christianity." The long arm of pop history has so elevated John Lennon's "more popular than Jesus" remark that its surrounding context has fallen into obscurity, even though the quoted sentence is the one that first made it onto a U.S. magazine cover. The full quote drives home that Lennon, more than questions of theology, was consumed with the idea of longevity – if a modest Nazarene carpenter had managed to forge an unbroken chain of recognition and influence for nearly two millennia, would the same be true of the boys who sang "Can't Buy Me Love"? In the decades after the Beatles broke up, there was Jesus Christ Superstar and Life of Brian, and "Like a Prayer" and South Park, and by 2013, the shock factor of Lennon's remark had worn off to the point that the title of Kanye West's Yeezus was one of the least controversial things about it. He released a song titled "I Am a God," listing "God" as a featured artist, and all anyone wanted to talk about was the damn croissants! So what exactly is the problem with Lil Nas X baptizing himself in the same secularized Gospel as countless creatives before him? Well, mainly it's because "J Christ" isn't actually doing that. In fact, it very purposefully isn't doing much at all other than serving as a skeletal blueprint for a self-directed music video (which, in full disclosure, I deliberately avoided watching until after this blurb was published). The song's title is not in reference to a creative resurrection, which is nowhere in evidence anyway, but instead to the fact that the world had gone 15 months without hearing any new Lil Nas X music. 15 whole months! Does that even qualify as a hiatus, much less one that's worthy of analogy to the Pascal mystery? Similarly, the awkward truncation of the Messiah's name is neither a targeted act of blasphemy nor a veiled assertion of His divinity – it's something that had to happen in order for "get the gays hype" to work. No doubt this particular juxtaposition was intentional, but as braggadocio it falls flat, because in 2024 there is no pop star on the planet who is incapable of getting at least some cohort of gays hype. As outrage bait, though, it checks the box, in an "I have read the terms and conditions" sort of way. More than anything, and in spite of its striving, surface-level brashness, "J Christ" sadly diminishes Lil Nas X into a smaller and pettier-seeming figure than ever before. While Lennon and Kanye were insecure about how their earthly legacies would measure up to the Greatest Story Ever Told, Lil Nas X seems primarily worried about how long his face will stay up on YouTube's trending page. He shrinks underneath the shadows of past provocateurs, wanting to be Kanye without wanting to be Kanye, borrowing Gesaffelstein as if expecting a yassified "Black Skinhead," then somehow not telling him to start over when he serves up this bloodless "HUMBLE." rehash. He tries to act as his own paparazzi, asking the questions he would like us to ask of him, in the same way anxious teenagers used to write anonymous questions to themselves on Tumblr. And he forgets the cardinal rule that if you mention Mariah and "high note" in the same song, you damn well better bless us with an actual, no-holds-barred high note attempt. "J Christ" is two-and-half minutes of evasion, self-negation, and fretful, aimless gesturing, all united under the theme of "except not really." It's politically motivated heresy, except not really; irreverent self-parody, except not really; a bid for hip hop royalty, except not really. A rebirth, yes, if regression counts.
[0]

Katherine St. Asaph: Critics seem reluctant to consider Lil Nas X as a pop star rather than a living meme. Yes, Lil Nas X also seems a little reluctant to do so, but it's remarkable how much of the critical reception of "J Christ" treads the same topical ground as SatanicPanicTok. Isn't part of what distinguishes a music critic from a tabloid aggregator an openness to musical technique and a determination to be trolled less? Is this a delayed backlash to the pop conversation getting crashed by former Twitter stans? (If so, be realistic about where the next generation of pop stars will be coming from.) Is Lil Nas X just that good at trolling? Because he's not that bad at being a pop star. "J Christ" was produced with Black Skinhead's Gesaffelstein -- once the subject of glowing profiles about "[rejecting] bullshit and [pushing] his artistic vision forward," subsequent bullshit notwithstanding -- and has at least as expensive-sounding a sound as, say, Doja Cat. The song not only has a hook, but almost exactly the same hook as "Old Town Road," just sped up and sproingified. If anything, people should be calling this a retread! Speaking of retreads, as for the much maligned "viral" line: Kendrick Lamar's "HUMBLE," which this very much bites, contains the oft-quoted (and, unless I'm misremembering, not much maligned) line "my left stroke just went viral." It is at least somewhat plausible that Montero is deliberately referencing it, as Eminem did before him. (Then again, Lil Nas X made a TikTok exhaustively detailing every reference in "J Christ," and that isn't on it -- but then again, the TikTok only covers the video, perhaps out of a suspicion that video parodies are less likely to draw the expensive ire of the Marvin Gaye estates of the world than musical ones; and also he might be trolling.) And I like the beat. I like the hooks (but would like them out of my head at some point soon). I like the magisterial costumes and the choreography, forgiving quick cuts and all -- if Tate McRae can get plaudits for her very mid choreo, surely this should be in the conversation too? I like how Lil Nas X comes off as his own sports announcer on a stream that's 1 second behind -- is he gonna hit 'em with the high note? (Though the high note could use some more hit; it's not exactly a Mike Breen bang.) I liked Lady Gaga's "Judas," too. As a standalone song.
[6]

Read all our writers' blurbs and rate and join the conversation at The Singles Jukebox mothership!